Rotary braiding machine

ABSTRACT

A rotary braiding machine, in particular for producing wire mesh, includes a plurality of braiding spools, a braiding rotor, a braiding head, a draw-off disk, a machine frame. The braiding rotor rotates about an axis which coincides or nearly coincides with the draw-off direction of the braiding material. The draw-off direction of the braiding material runs obliquely in space, i.e. neither horizontally nor vertically. In this manner, advantages of the conventional horizontal and vertical design of such a rotary braiding machine are combined such that only one product variant must be produced and distributed.

The invention relates to a rotary braiding machine, in particular forthe production of wire mesh.

Rotary braiding machines are used for producing mesh made of continuousstrand material like wire or textile fibers, for example yarn or plasticfibers, in the form of hollow tubular mesh or flat lace mesh or forbraiding a wire mesh around, for instance, a cord. Application areas fortechnical mesh produced in this way are for example shieldings forelectric cords against electromagnetic fields or protective coversagainst mechanical stress for cords or hoses.

The invention is described using the example of a rotary braidingmachine for the production of wire mesh. It is noted, however, that theinvention can also be used for rotary braiding machines for processingof any other fibrous materials.

A rotary braiding machine of the type considered has a plurality ofbraiding spools, each of which is mounted in a spool carrier. In thiscontext, a braiding spool is a cylindrical body for winding a fiber ontoit, in particular wire, with two flanges arranged at the ends of thecylindrical body having a larger diameter than that of the cylindricalbody. A spool carrier is an apparatus at which a braiding spool can besupported rotatably around its longitudinal axis.

The spool carriers with the braiding spools are mounted on two discsarranged coaxially on top of each other and rotating in oppositedirections around a common axis. Together with the spool carriers andthe braiding spools, these discs form the braiding rotor. Here, thebraiding spools mounted on one of the discs (“outer” braiding spools)perform certain movements, which are not described here in detail,relative to the braiding spools mounted on the other disc (“inner”braiding spools), resulting in the desired braiding of the wires runningoff the braiding spools.

If a wire mesh is to be braided around a strand material, as for examplea cord or a hose, then this strand material can be fed to the rotarybraiding machine through through-holes in the center of the two discs.In this case, the rotary braiding machine additionally has, for thispurpose, a supply roller or a take-off spool for feeding the strandmaterial. A supply roller and a take-off spool have the same geometricalform as a braiding spool, but usually have dimensions differing largelyfrom that, in particular a substantially larger diameter of thecylindrical body.

Furthermore, the rotary braiding machine has a braiding head in the formof an ear and/or a tube, at the inlet of which the single wires and,optionally, the strand material to be braided around converge and arebraided with each other or are braided around, respectively. The pointat which this convergence occurs is called braiding point. The braidingpoint lies on or approximately on the geometrical axis around which thebraiding rotor rotates.

In order to remove the braided material, i. e. the braided wires or thestrand material braided around, resp., from the braiding point in acontrolled way, the rotary braiding machine additionally has a draw-offdisc. This disc has the form of a wheel which is at least partiallywrapped around by the braided material and rotates with a certain rotaryspeed adapted to the kind of braided material to be produced.

The direction in which the braided material moves from the braidingpoint towards the draw-off disc is called the draw-off direction of thebraided material. The draw-off direction can thus be described as astraight line with an orientation. In the type of rotary braidingmachine considered, the braiding rotor rotates around an axis which isidentical or nearly identical with the draw-off direction of the braidedmaterial.

As a high level of noise arises when the braiding spools, the spoolcarriers and the braiding rotor move as well as when the wires arebraided, the rotary braiding machine can additionally have a noisereduction hood enclosing at least the braiding rotor. In this context, anoise reduction hood shall mean a cover which is substantially closed inthe operating condition of the machine, which consists of anoise-reducing material to a large extent, and which partially orcompletely encloses single machine components or the whole machine. Thenoise reduction hood can be fixed to the machine or can be designed in aself-supporting manner, preferably in the form of a cabin, in the lattercase preferably standing on or being fixed to the floor. The noisereduction hood can have suitable apertures like flaps or windows or, inthe case of large machines with walk-in noise reduction hoods or cabins,also doors for access of the operating staff.

Moreover, the rotary braiding machine has a machine frame. Here, amachine frame means an apparatus for supporting and/or mechanicallyfixing certain machine components, in particular the braiding rotor, aswell as for connecting machine components to each other. It preferablyconsists of tubes, stays, plates or other form elements rigidlyconnected to one another, and can have further facilities like dampingelements for damping oscillations and vibrations. The machine frameitself can again be fixed in a stationary way, preferably to the floor.

Frequently, the take-off spool and/or the feeding equipment, inparticular a supply roller, for the strand material to be braided aroundis accommodated or mounted in or at the machine frame.

It is known to fix the braiding rotor at the machine frame in such a waythat the draw-off direction is oriented horizontally or vertically.Likewise, the terms horizontal or vertical design, resp., of the rotarybraiding machine are used.

Both designs mentioned have certain advantages and disadvantages:

The vertical design requires a relatively small footprint of the rotarybraiding machine and, due to the horizontal arrangement of the braidingrotor, allows for a relatively low center of gravity of the machine,which in turn facilitates the stable and low-vibration support of therotating components. Furthermore, all spool carriers are accessible forthe operator on an approximately equal, well-suited working height.

On the other hand, the vertical design requires more deflections andcurvatures both of the strand material, which has to be fed between thehall floor and the lower edge of the braiding rotor, and the completedbraided material, in case it has to be directed from the draw-off discat the highest point of the machine downwards towards the floor again.This is an issue in particular with larger and thicker and thus lessflexible products. Furthermore, the draw-off disc must be mounted on topof the machine frame, leading to complex constructions, in particular inthe case of large machines where high tension stress on the wires to beprocessed and on the braided material must be sustained. Finally, largemachines according to the vertical design can get so high that access bythe operator becomes impossible without a stair or the like.

Vice versa, the horizontal design requires a larger footprint of themachine, leading to a higher center of gravity of the machine, however.On the other hand, the processing stations from drawing-off the strandmaterial to winding the braided material can be “stretched” in thehorizontal direction, so that fewer deflections and curvatures of thematerial are required.

These and further advantages and disadvantages of the horizontal and thevertical design result in the fact that a certain type of rotarybraiding machine must often be produced and sold in both designs,altogether leading to a doubling of the number of variants with acorresponding increase of the number of non-identical components, toincreased project planning efforts and to higher costs.

The object of the present invention is to provide a uniform and thuscost-efficient design of a rotary braiding machine.

This problem is solved by a rotary braiding machine according to claim1. Advantageous further developments of the invention are contained inthe sub-claims.

With a rotary braiding machine according to the invention, thedrawing-off direction of the braided material is oriented obliquely inspace, i. e. neither horizontally nor vertically, but inclined both withrespect to the horizontal and with respect to the vertical by a certainangle.

This angle is preferably between 20 and 70 degrees to the vertical,further preferably about 30 degrees to the vertical, and even furtherpreferably about 45 degrees to the vertical.

At an angle of 45 degrees, the design of the rotary braiding machine isthus exactly “between” the horizontal and the vertical design, combiningthe advantages of the two designs particularly well. At this angle, forinstance, the overall height of the machine is reduced to a factor ofabout 0.7 (sin 45°≈0.707).

At the same time, a quasi-horizontal direction of production using adeflection of the material over large deflection rollers or roller arcswith a relatively small deflection can be realized. The relatively lowcenter of gravity of the machine and the good accessibility of the spoolcarriers, which are now arranged in an inclined, a “desk-like” mannerfrom the viewpoint of the operator, are conserved, however.

As the rotary braiding machine must therefore only be produced and soldin a single, oblique design anymore, also the desired reduction of themultitude of variants and components and the accompanying cost reductionresults. The basic components of the machine like the braiding rotor andthe draw-off disc can be adopted without change in this way, becausethey are suited for both the vertical and the horizontal design anyway.

In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the draw-off disc is notfixed to the machine frame. In a preferred variant of this embodiment,the draw-off disc is mounted at a separate stand, which is preferablyfixed to the floor besides the machine. In this way, high tensile forcesacting through the mesh on the draw-off disc can be sustained simply andeffectively. This results in a simple, stable and low-cost designwithout an extensive reinforcement of the machine frame.

In a preferred variant of this embodiment, the rotary braiding machinehas a noise reduction hood which substantially encloses the braidingrotor. This is because, by means of the spatial separation of thedraw-off disc from the machine frame and from the braiding rotor, it ispossible that the noise reduction hood only encloses the braiding rotor,but not the draw-off disc, without components of the machine framehaving to penetrate the noise reduction hood, which in turn would leadto problems with designing and mounting the noise reduction hood as wellas to acoustical bridges between the interior and the exterior of thenoise reduction hood.

Different embodiments of a rotary braiding machine according to theinvention and their advantages are now described referring to thedrawings. Here, it is shown in

FIG. 1 an oblique view of an embodiment of a rotary braiding machineaccording to the invention

-   -   a) without noise reduction hood    -   b) with open noise reduction hood    -   c) with closed noise reduction hood;

FIG. 2 a rotary braiding machine according to the invention

-   -   a) without noise reduction hood from behind    -   b) with noise reduction hood from in front    -   c) with noise reduction hood from the right    -   d) with noise reduction hood from above;

FIG. 3 an oblique view of a further embodiment of a rotary braidingmachine according to the invention

-   -   a) without noise reduction hood enclosing the braiding rotor        (partially cut open)    -   b) with noise reduction hood enclosing the braiding rotor        (closed);

FIG. 4 a comparison of different angles of inclination, illustrated bymeans of a rotary braiding machine from the prior art according to thevertical design

-   -   a) in the originally intended, non-inclined position    -   b) inclined by 30° to the vertical    -   c) inclined by 45° to the vertical.

FIG. 1 a) shows a rotary braiding machine 1 according to the inventionwhich is inclined by 45° with a braiding rotor 2 with 24 spool carriersand wire spools, the machine being dimensioned for wire spools with amaximum weight of 5.5 kg. The draw-off direction is also inclined by 45°to the vertical and is oriented obliquely in space. The braiding rotor 2is mounted on the cover plate of a desk-like machine frame 3 with thehelp of fixing angles. The draw-off disc 4 is mounted beside the machineframe on a separate stand 5. The draw-off disc 4 rotates in a verticalplane which is perpendicular to the plane of rotation of the braidingrotor 2.

A supply roller 6 for a cord is mounted at the machine frame 3 on theside of the machine frame 3 opposite the draw-off disc 4. Instead ofsupply roller 6, however, also a take-off spool 6 for a cord can bemounted here. The cord is led from supply roller or take-off spool 6through an opening (not shown) in the cover plate of machine frame 3 andthrough central bores in braiding rotor 2 and moves in the draw-offdirection towards the braiding head. At the braiding head (not shown),the cord is braided around by the wires wound off the braiding spools onthe braiding rotor 2. Then the braided material is drawn off thebraiding head in the drawing-off direction by draw-off disc 4 and iswound onto draw-off disc 4.

In FIG. 1 b), the same embodiment of the rotary braiding machine 1according to the invention is shown with a noise reduction hood 7enclosing the complete machine except a part of supply roller ortake-off spool 6. Noise reduction hood 7 has the form of a cabin andstands on the hall floor outside machine frame 3. It has a window 8 atits end face for visual inspection of the machine state, an (in FIG. 1b) open) door 9 at its front face as an entrance to the machine byoperator 10 and an operating unit 11 with input and output elements foroperating the machine from outside when the noise reduction hood 7 isclosed.

The representation in FIG. 1 b) makes clear that the braiding rotor 2,in spite of its inclined position, is in a position which is convenientfor operator 10.

FIG. 1 c) shows the same embodiment of the rotary braiding machine 1according to the invention with closed noise reduction hood 7 andwithout operator 10.

FIG. 2 shows the embodiment of the rotary braiding machine 1 accordingto the invention of FIG. 1 once again in different side views, namely inFIG. 2 a) without noise reduction hood 7 from behind, and in FIGS. 2 b)to 2 d) in each case with closed noise reduction hood 7 from in front,from the right or from above, resp. In FIG. 2 a), it can be seen thatthe upper edge of draw-off disc 4 is about at the height of theoperator's head, so that no unpleasant or exhausting overhead work isrequired.

FIG. 3 shows a further, larger embodiment of a rotary braiding machine 1according to the invention for 36 spool carriers and wire spools for amaximum weight of 5.5 kg, the braiding rotor 2 and the draw-offdirection A being inclined by 45° as well. In this representation, alsocord 12 can be seen from the exit from braiding rotor 2, moving indraw-off direction A to the braiding head (which is arrangedapproximately behind the head of operator 10) and further asbraided-around cord 12 to draw-off disc 4, onto which it is wound.

As a further element, a machine control 13 being arranged beside therotary braiding machine 1 in the form of a cabinet can be seen in FIG.3. Status lamps in the form of a traffic light on the upper side ofmachine control 13 with colors red, yellow, and green serve the purposeof displaying states of error or danger, states requiring actions of theoperator, or the normal state of the machine, resp., in a widely visibleway.

In this embodiment, draw-off disc 4 is again arranged on a separatestand 5, which in this case is mounted on an extension of machine frame3.

In this embodiment, noise reduction hood 7 only encloses braiding rotor2. Especially with such a large embodiment of rotary braiding machine 1,this results in a substantial reduction of volume of noise reductionhood 7 compared to the embodiment shown in FIG. 1.

As braiding rotor 2 is the largest source of noise of rotary braidingmachine 1 due to its fast rotation and to the plurality of movingcomponents arranged thereon, noise reduction hood 7 is in this formsufficient for an effective damping of noise.

The form factor of noise reduction hood 7 is fitted to braiding rotor 2and forms an approximately prismatic body having the footprint of aregular octagon. This has the advantage that noise reduction hood 7 isonly assembled from flat components, which can be produced in a simpleand cost-efficient way. Noise reduction hood 7 can, however, also have adifferent, for instance cylindrical form and can thus be fitted evenbetter to the form of braiding rotor 2, resulting in a further reductionof volume by the omission of corners and an improved appearance.

Noise reduction hood 7 is fixed to machine frame 3 and can also in thisembodiment have suitable vision and manipulation facilities likewindows, flaps and/or detachable components.

At draw-off disc 4, which in this embodiment is not enclosed by noisereduction hood 7, suitable means for the prevention of accidents have tobe provided, like cover sheets, closed cable ducts, proximity sensors,or emergency shut-off switches.

FIG. 4 shows in a conceptual way the change of dimensions of the machineresulting from the idea according to the invention to incline thedraw-off direction and thus also braiding rotor 2 with respect to thevertical. This is done on the basis of a rotary braiding machine 1 fromthe prior art according to the vertical design.

In the unchanged position shown in FIG. 4 a), braiding rotor 2 rotatesin a horizontal plane. Consequently, the draw-off direction is orientedupwards in vertical direction. Draw-off disc 4 is mounted on top ofmachine frame 3 and forms the highest point of the machine. The upperedge of draw-off disc 4 has a height of approximately 2.41 m. The widthof the machine is about 1.74 m.

By tilting the machine by 30°, as shown in FIG. 4 b), the height of themachine—not taking avoidable components of the machine frame intoaccount which, in this representation, protrude even below the bottomside or above the edge of the machine—is reduced to about 2.06 m and thecorresponding width to about 2.13 m.

By tilting the machine by 45°, as shown in FIG. 4 c) and as alsorealized in the embodiments of the rotary braiding machine 1 accordingto the invention in FIGS. 1 to 3, the height of the machine is reducedto about 1.83 m and the width to about 2.16 m.

Here, the dimensions of rotary braiding machine 1 from the prior artshown in FIG. 4, in particular the size of the single machine componentsand their relative position, corresponds to the dimensions of rotarybraiding machine 1 according to the invention shown in FIGS. 1 to 3. Byestimating the outer dimensions of the embodiment inclined by 45° inFIG. 4 c), also the representation in FIG. 2 a) is verified that theupper edge of draw-off disc 4 is about at the height of the head of anoperator of normal body height.

LIST OF REFERENCE SIGNS

1 Rotary braiding machine

2 Braiding rotor

3 Machine frame

4 Draw-off disc

5 Stand of the draw-off disc

6 Supply roller or take-off spool for the strand material

7 Noise reduction hood

8 Window

9 Door

10 Operator

11 Operating unit

12 Cord

13 Machine control

A Draw-off direction

1. A rotary braiding machine, in particular for producing wire mesh,comprising: a plurality of braiding spools, in particular for wires, andspool carriers; a braiding rotor on which the braiding spools arearranged in the spool carriers; a braiding head defining a braidingpoint; a draw-off disc; a machine frame; the braiding rotor rotatingaround an axis which is identical or approximately identical to thedraw-off direction of the braided material; and the draw-off directionof the braided material is oriented obliquely in space, i. e. neitherhorizontally nor vertically.
 2. The rotary braiding machine according toclaim 1, characterized in that the draw-off direction of the braidedmaterial is inclined by between 20 and 70 degrees to the vertical. 3.The rotary braiding machine according to claim 1, characterized in thatthe draw-off direction of the braided material is inclined by about 30degrees to the vertical.
 4. The rotary braiding machine according toclaim 1, characterized in that the draw-off direction of the braidedmaterial is inclined by about 45 degrees to the vertical.
 5. The rotarybraiding machine according to claim 1, characterized in that thedraw-off disc is not fixed to the machine frame.
 6. The rotary braidingmachine according to claim 5, characterized in that the draw-off disc isfixed to a separate stand.
 7. The rotary braiding machine according toclaim 5, characterized in that the rotary braiding machine has a noisereduction hood which substantially encloses the braiding rotor.
 8. Therotary braiding machine according to claim 1, further including at leastone of a supply roller and a take-off spool for a strand material. 9.The rotary braiding machine according to claim 1, further including anoise reduction hood.